There are approximately 9 million alcoholics in the United States. Past experience establishes that up to 80 percent of hard core male alcoholics experience impotence, sterility and gonadal atrophy. Other signs of what can loosely be termed feminization in hard core alcoholics include changes in bodily hair, gynecomastia and vascular changes including so-called "spider angiomata." Work performed during the past several years has provided a partial endocrinological basis for these phenomena. It has been shown that alcoholic liver disease produces certain feminizing changes. It has also been shown that alcohol or its metabolic derivatives produce certain changes both in the testis and in the hypothalamus-pituitary. Feminized men are known to have both low androgen concentrations in the plasma and high estrogen levels. The precise nature of the estrogenic material in plasma is in doubt. During the proposed grant period it is planned to pursue this problem further. The effect of alcohol and alcoholic liver disease on female sexual function will be examined. The effect of these factors on sensitivity to sex hormone will be investigated by studying whole liver and hepatic sex hormone receptors. A pilot study of the effect of alcohol on pregnancy in laboratory animals will be undertaken. The objective will be to define the pathogenesis of alcohol-induced sexual dysfunction.